I am me.

I don't know how old I was, but I do remember that realization that "I am me." As in a unique "me" that is separate from "you." That the voice in my head was MY inner thoughts.

And my mind was blown.

I'm on the left.  1979-ish. Pretty blown away by that marshmallow.

When I moved into the dorms at 18 I'd lay in bed thinking: "I'm too young to not be living with my parents. Who said I was old enough to go to college?"

Not my dorm, but my first apartment.
Yes. that's a chain wallet. 

When I got my first cat (oooh, Evie, you little asshole) I couldn't believe someone had allowed me to be responsible for something else's life. What if it did it wrong or what if she just would have been happier with someone else? When she died I thought I might too. To this day I don't think I've cried as hard as when I had her put down. I wasn't equipt for a decision like that. People with insight and wisdom decide those things... I don't.

I swear she liked to wear hats.

When I got my first jobby job after college I felt like I'd tricked someone into thinking I was capable of whatever it was they were going to need me to do. And then at some point I wondered, "Is this really a job? Someone is actually paying me to do this? This is something that people do for a living..." I worked there for 8 years.

 

Not from that night... in fact 2 years later. But still. Me
boozing. Like a grown up. Taking selfies. 

I bought my condo when I was 25 and the night I closed on the loan I went to the condo alone and wished I could smoke a cigarette to celebrate, but I'd quit smoking about 4 months prior. Smoking was the only thing my brain could think of that would make it right that I was old enough to have just bought property (well, a box of air in a 100-unit building). I had started smoking at 15 because it was grown up and cool.

But I didn't smoke to celebrate. Instead I got incredibly drunk with my friends and ended up sobbing in the bar because someone teased me about something that normally wouldn't have made me cry and I called my friend Nick to come get me and he sat in the living room while I threw up. Grown. Ass. Up.

Two weeks ago I was given a promotion. It was kind of a big. I said "Thank you" like a grown up and "I really appreciate your support" like a grown up and even emailed my boss's boss to say how much I appreciated the opportunity. Like a grown up. And then I emailed my parents:

Subject: I'm whispering
Because it feels weird to say it at a normal volume:

I was promoted. I'm pretty sure I tricked someone.  

Shhhh. Whisper voices, please. 

My mom called and left me a voicemail that I couldn't hear because she was whispering so quietly. My dad responded via email very loudly and I had to ask him to quiet down.

It's not that I don't think I'm good at my job. I know I'm good at my job. I know that I work hard. But I still feel like I've tricked someone and if I speak in normal tones Ashton Kutcher is going to jump out and punch me in the nuts.

And my poor boss. He wants so very much to be praised for getting me the promotion, but I'm an infant and don't know how to deal with my own embarassment. He talks about it everytime we see each other and I usually say something stupid like "Well, my job is exactly the same as it was prior" and you can see that he's crushed because I didn't say "Everything is amazing because you have saved me from a life of prostitution" or at least something gracious and not stupid. So I emailed him yesterday to apologize for not knowing how to react to things like a normal human. That's what I said: "I don't know how to act like a normal human." What I want is to not talk about it because I get embarrassed.

Here is what I'm good at: reading, writing, basic math (but not in my head), telling obnoxiously long stories, and making shit up and saying things like I didn't just make it up... And arguing. I'm pretty good at arguing a point based on shit I just made up. Is that how people get to the top? Are they all making it up? Because everyone else seems like they have a plan or a background or something and I've never had a plan. Well, not never. But... not a planny plan.

I sometimes have an idea. It usually involves whispering. 

1995